The Treasury under the Trump administration is moving to stop welfare recipients from wiring taxpayer-funded benefits out of the country amid allegations that public assistance in Minnesota was diverted to international terrorist groups and foreign interests. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the department will require anyone wiring money to declare whether they receive public assistance and will act to block outbound transfers when abuse is suspected. Lawmakers pressed witnesses about the scale of welfare usage in certain communities, while the Treasury said it is auditing financial institutions and tracing transactions linked to alleged fraud. This piece explains the new rule, the roles of officials and oversight, and why accountability matters for taxpayers and national security.
The administration’s message is straightforward: if you get government benefits, you should not be able to send that money overseas without scrutiny. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described a new requirement for money service businesses to record whether a sender is on public assistance, and he said those findings will trigger follow-up actions. The aim is to halt misuse of benefits that taxpayers fund and to trace any funds that may have been routed to hostile entities. This is about protecting American generosity and stopping it from being exploited.
BESSENT: From now on, anyone who wires money out, from one of these money service businesses, has to check a box saying whether they are on public assistance. And, if you are on public assistance, we’re going to start pushing that you cannot wire money out of the country.
On Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Bessent made clear the Treasury will pursue cases where recipients lie about their benefit status. “We’re going to follow it up and we’re going to push [so] that you can no longer do that. The American people – our generosity – has been taken advantage of,” he said when asked how the government will respond. That language frames the policy as enforcement of basic accountability, not an attack on assistance programs themselves. Republicans argue that ensuring benefits serve intended recipients is common-sense stewardship of taxpayer funds.
Host Laura Ingraham raised concerns that wired funds might end up supporting al Shabaab or Iranian interests, and Bessent tied the issue to both welfare excess and potential criminal conspiracies. He said either a household is receiving too much and should have benefits reduced, or it is part of a scheme moving money offshore. “Where did that money come from? We’re gonna find out. That’s what Treasury does,” he stated, pressing the point that tracing funds is central to national security and fiscal responsibility.
Investigations into the Minnesota situation have been underway for weeks, focused on an estimated $9 billion Somali-related fraud scandal that officials say may have involved cross-border flows. Bessent and the Treasury flagged concerns that tax dollars could have been diverted and pledged audits of financial institutions that failed to flag suspicious activity. Tracking these transfers is painstaking work, but proponents argue it’s necessary to restore integrity to public assistance programs and reassure taxpayers their money is safe.
At my direction, @USTreasury is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.
Thanks to the leadership of @POTUS @realDonaldTrump, we are acting fast to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror.
We will share our findings as our investigation continues.
Congressional Republicans have been combing witness testimony for hard numbers on benefit participation rates in specific communities. Rep. Brandon Gill pressed a witness on the share of Somali-headed households on food stamps, citing a 54 percent figure and contrasting it with a 7 percent rate for native-headed households. Those exchanges underscore the political pressure to reconcile program access with fraud prevention and to ensure public policy doesn’t incentivize gaming the system. Lawmakers want both transparency and reforms that prevent taxpayer dollars from being siphoned abroad.
Top of mind for Gill seemed to be how much of the state’s resources, aside from the fraudulent activity, are being drained by the Somali community living there. “Do you know what percentage of Somali-headed households in Minnesota are on food stamps? 54%,” Gill asked Ballou.
Gill was just getting started.
“Do you know what that number is for native Minnesota-headed households?” Gill asked.
Ballou began to respond but was cut off by more questions from Gill.
“Well, to be clear, a majority of —” Ballou began.
“It’s 7%,” Gill interjected. “There’s a big difference between 54% and 7%, no?”
“You’re using the phrase ‘native Minnesotans’ — the majority of Somali Minnesotans are as Minnesotan as any of us. They were born in the United States,” Ballou fired back, noting that there could be some overlap between Gill’s numbers.
Beyond hearings, Treasury officials say they are already tracing transaction trails and auditing banks and money service businesses that may have enabled suspect transfers. These audits aim to identify compliance failures and push institutions to tighten anti-money-laundering checks. If rules were ignored or enforcement was lax, regulators plan to hold entities accountable. For Republicans, this is enforcement finally catching up to a clear problem: fraud and weak oversight that cost taxpayers billions.
Officials emphasize that the goal is targeted enforcement, not a wholesale attack on immigrant communities or on the safety net that Americans trust. The policy focus is on stopping misuse and cutting off channels that could funnel U.S. dollars to terrorists or hostile regimes. By requiring clear reporting at the point of wire transfer, the Treasury hopes to create a paper trail that makes abuse harder and prosecution easier. That kind of transparency would help restore confidence in how public funds are distributed.
Accountability measures and tougher scrutiny of outgoing wires are now central to the administration’s response to allegations of fraud tied to welfare programs. Republicans argue these steps protect taxpayers and national security alike while preserving support for genuine beneficiaries. The coming audits and investigations will either expose systemic failure or clear institutions that followed the rules, and either outcome will shape the next wave of reforms.
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